Trust
by disillusionist9
Summary: Orange was an unquestionably obnoxious color. It wasn't innocuous like grey, or brown or black. Orange took over the palette it shared and drew attention to itself shamelessly. For that exact reason, Hermione wondered why it took her so long to notice the single orange hair that was threaded in the sleeve of her Potions professor's robes.
1. MCMXCIV

**Disclaimer:** This is all for fun, I do not claim ownership of the characters or anything recognized from the work of J.K. Rowling. I am only borrowing them.

[A/N] This was originally posted 9.17.15 and was updated 9.21.15, I clarified the moment mentioning Buckbeak.

 **Playlist:** All Time Low – Outlines | Blue Foundation – Eyes on Fire | Blake Lewis - Surrender

* * *

Orange was an unquestionably obnoxious color. It wasn't innocuous like grey, or brown or black. Orange took over the palette it shared and drew attention to itself shamelessly.

For that exact reason, Hermione wondered why it took her so long to notice the single orange hair that was threaded in the sleeve of her Potions professor's robes. She supposed she couldn't blame herself. All the commotion of the upcoming arrival of Durmstrang and Beauxbatons had set the school into a frenzy that rivaled the atmosphere before a Quidditch game.

And she abhorred Quidditch.

The fourth years had Potions twice each week, once on Monday mornings and secondly on Thursday afternoons. Typically the Monday mornings were filled with lecture and possible brewing where Thursday was spent brewing the same potion again in order to get it as close to an Acceptable that anyone would earn in his class. That Monday morning had been a particularly cold one, a harbinger for what was to come in the winter months. Her parents had sent a new pair of mittens, a scarf and a hat along with her birthday present that year, claiming the almanacs were foretelling a colder than typical fall. No sooner had she had unwrapped the gifts in her dorm on her four poster had Crookshanks leapt up to the bed to investigate the cashmere-like knit items.

"You may paw them but please do not knead them to shreds. I'd like to be able to wear them at least once over Christmas break."

The tomcat simply purred deeper in response, giving her a few head butts on the knee for good measure.

Down in the dungeons she longed for those warmly knit gloves that were surely heated delightfully below her familiar's belly. It was lecture day so they wouldn't be lighting the cauldrons unless they made it through whatever lines and rudimentary theory Professor Snape tasked them to that morning.

Hermione's mind never wandered in Potions class, and rarely did her gaze, but a flash of bright orange on Professor Snape's forearm caught her attention almost as soon as his first sharp gesticulation at the chalkboard at the front of the room. The movement was fluid and graceful and for a fleeting moment she imagined her professor in a full body black leotard (what else) gliding equally gracefully across a shiny linoleum dance floor. It was such a ludicrous image that she stared down at her notes in shame for even thinking it.

The room around her was silent, which was normal, but the quiet was more oppressive than usual. She could feel a few eyes on her even as she hid beneath her hair.

Sweet Merlin did he know what she had just been thinking about him? Dare she look up?

"No one?" drawled a contemptuous voice standing quite near her.

The flash of bright orange was _right there_ so close she could touch it, and nearly automatically did as she so often had to do with her own clothes when…

Realization made her head snap up to attention, her hand automatically rising with it. Hitting Professor Snape in the jaw with her stiff fingers was a near miss but he did not flinch. The sneer on his lips deepened imperceptibly. She wouldn't have noticed that if he and his sleeve with the orange tomcat hair weren't still _right there_.

"Miss Granger," was the reluctant statement. Not even a question in his voice any longer; she was always the one who had the answer. His tone indicated that he…expected it.

"The crushed roots of mandrake need to sear for at least ten minutes per ounce, sir," her brain rattling off the information she was certain her ears had not taken in. Thank Merlin for reading ahead of the class. The sound of blood rushing through her head at the pointless embarrassment she still felt muffled the sound of her Professor's irritated sigh. The embarrassment was pointless because there was no way her luck was poor enough on her birthday to have garnered the impossible task of Professor Snape reading her mind at just that moment.

A small huff escaped his lips as he continued walking by her. "Correct. The length of time necessary to sear the mandrake root is also affected by the age of the plant. Those of you who are not oblivious to the world around you will recall the incidents of two years ago…"

Relief coursed through her as her hand began highlighting and marking notes once more on the parchment filled potions journal on the table before her. Not a moment's more information was absorbed as her gaze continued to be distracted by the occasional flash of traitorous orange between folds of black.

The magically enhanced sound of the bell from the clock tower two levels above their heads signaled the end of morning potions and the beginning of the lunch hour. Ron and Harry had predictably been the first two to leave the room, not even pausing in their bid to escape the Potions classroom for Hermione. Without even a cursory glance the two boys were up the first flight of stairs from the dungeons before Hermione had even finished the final note from the lecture. It had been a blessedly calm class, devoid of any barbs thrown by the Slytherins or Gryffindor outbursts and not even a large amount of points lost or gained for either House.

With a frustrated huff, Hermione ripped the elastic from her wrist and secured her hair back into a ponytail. For a few moments each curl would be restrained, so she relished it. She didn't mind in the slightest that the boys had gone ahead of her this time; her mind was too distracted.

The sneer from the desk at the front of the room could almost be _heard_.

Moving of their own accord, her eyes moved to the desk a final time before leaving the Potions classroom, the final student to do so. They did not meet the eyes of her formidable professor but caught a glance at the long ginger hair still resolutely perched on the left forearm of Professor Snape's thick woolen sleeve. Pale and thin fingers distracted her stare that could have lasted a second or could have lasted hours for all she knew. Those fingers grasped the hair that had surely come from Crookshanks' bottlebrush tail. Hermione knew the color, texture and length of all the spots of hair around her familiar's body as well as she knew the next thing to come from between the professor's lips was going to be a scathing remark.

But none came.

He simply plucked the hair from his sleeve and Vanished it within his palm silently.

Hermione forced herself to not meet his gaze as she tore from the classroom and put her trainers to good use as she jogged to catch up with Harry and Ron.

* * *

For the entire previous year Crookshanks had lived within the castle and the Gryffindor dormitories with nary a shed hair on Ronald Weasley, Lavender Brown, Parvati Patil or any of the others. She would have surely heard derisive comments on the quality of her familiar's grooming if that were the case. It was easy to tell the difference between Weasley-red and Crookshanks-ginger to someone who cared to notice such things.

Harry occasionally had to have a hair or two plucked from his jumper or robes.

Hermione was very nearly continuously plucking a hair from somewhere on her person.

Hagrid always had a hair or two stuck in his beard when she visited him. Even Buckbeak had had one or two mixed within his feathers, which she had always presumed was due to close contact with Hagrid and her person during third year. But she had seen Crookshanks napping with the hippogriff on occasion before the incident in third year with Professor Lupin, Sirius Black, and Peter Pettigrew. She had always assumed the hairs came from close contact with her person but now…

Now she wasn't so sure.

The hair incident during Potions was quickly pushed aside in all of the commotion of the arrival of Beauxbatons and Durmstrang, and the subsequent tournament and tasks ,and generally keeping Harry alive. She was always trying to keep Harry alive. If she thought about it, she never recalled pulling a single cat hair from Viktor Krum's robes and they had spent so much time together in the library that year.

* * *

The Dark Mark was an ugly, ghastly thing. Like a blister, sore and red against pale skin; it burned into the pale arm of her Potions professor as he proffered the terrible sight to all in the hospital wing that night. A surge of anger swelled within her breast. That night she had interpreted it as anger at him, which she used to lash out against that awful Rita Skeeter. That anger encouraged more than just one night trapped in a jar for the reporter, but was not enough to fuel the captivity much past Platform 9 ¾.

Later, she would realize her righteous anger was from understanding how much pain that Mark put him in. How much he suffered and how little he received.

Three ginger hairs were on his robes that night as he swept out to meet the Dark Lord and whatever fate awaited him.


	2. MCMXCV - I

**Disclaimer:** This is all for fun, I do not claim ownership of the characters or anything recognized from the work of J.K. Rowling. I am only borrowing them.

[A/N] The response so far has been brilliant and I thank everyone for their views, reviews, follows, and favorites. DMB 4-6 is in progress but the content got very heavy for me to write so a bit of fluff was necessary. Also, I have decided that whenever I include her parents that I'll choose first names for them that I like at that time since they don't have any in canon (yet).

Also, fifth year truly needs two chapters. I only intended the four but OotP is just so MASSIVE.

 **Playlist:** Imogen Heap - Swoon | Jimmy Eat World - Work | Anberlin - Someone Anyone

* * *

Hermione was resigned to the fact that she would most likely never remove all of the dust from her eyes, the grit beneath her fingernails, or the cobwebs from her hair. Hours spent scrubbing every inch of Grimmauld Place were putting her into a decidedly dreary demeanor. Kreacher didn't help. Sirius didn't help, either. Ron's whining certainly didn't help and it was all she could do to not resort to physical violence when he carried on, but Molly was proficient enough at boxing his ears without her interference.

The only respite from the brooding of the other occupants and her own physical and mental exhaustion were the nights curled up with Crookshanks at her feet or on her pillow or frankly any place he wanted to be. He was a grouchy half-kneazle but had not left her alone at night in the house since arriving a week before.

Professor Dumbledore had dropped her off in the late evening hours after collecting her from her parent's London townhouse. The Grangers had recently acquired the brownstone after her father's father had passed. Hermione felt as though she should feel more bereft as he was her last living grandparent but she had spent little time with the man who preferred to live the remainder of his life in Spain with some mistress or another.

So it was then, three weeks after her grandfather's funeral and barely a month after Voldemort's return that she came home with her parents from the cinema to continue cleaning the townhouse and found Albus Dumbledore sitting in the front drawing room.

Hermione had nearly lost her ability to be surprised at her Headmaster, but his appearance at a location she had never listed on her contact file at Hogwarts caught her off guard. Her parents recovered more easily than their daughter, Elizabeth Granger offering him tea and Dennis Granger moving to shake his hand. Their reactions instantly made her suspicious. Had they recently been in contact with the Headmaster?

"No, thank you for your hospitality but I've come to collect Hermione." The twinkle in his eye was on full blast as he said this directly to her. She wondered how anyone could handle the force of his attention in this capacity. It made her nose itch.

"Tonight, sir?"

Professor Dumbledore nodded. "Yes, my dear. Your assistance is requested by Mrs. Weasley. She's taken on quite the extensive project."

It was fortuitous that she hadn't really unpacked from her terms at Hogwarts and that part of the process was relatively swift. Crookshanks was shedding ferociously onto the coverlet on the loveseat in the sitting room while she dragged her trunk down the steps.

"Well now, it's hardly fair that I take your daughter away to help when she was previously helping you both here."

Though both Grangers protested verbally that he didn't need to help them with magic, they were quite alright handling the rest of the sorting themselves, their shoulders were definitely lowered in relief as dust and dirt was Scourigified from the rooms they hadn't reached yet. With promises to write often and a few strong hugs, Hermione waved goodbye to her parents for the summer.

The steps of 12 Grimmauld Place reminded her distinctly of the townhouse she had just left and she couldn't help but wonder if it was near her grandfather's old home. It was impossible to tell at the moment as she had been Apparated directly to the front stoop and left there by the Headmaster. Adjusting Crookshanks in her arms, she pressed her face into his fur as Professor Dumbledore unlocked the front door with a series of wand movements.

It comforted her that there was a pile of cat hair left in the house with her parents, as if she were able to leave a piece of her behind after the abrupt departure.

* * *

Harry was so furious. How could they blame him, though? Left alone for months without a word from anyone besides the papers he caught in the rubbish bin. His temper had always been volatile but this was different. Even including the end of the Triwizard Tournament, something was very wrong and she wished he would talk to her so she could help.

* * *

"That woman is wretched! Absolutely wretched!" Hermione groaned as she sank into one of the common room couches.

"Allow me a moment to bask in the idea that you agree with us on a professor," said Ron, landing equally heavily but at the opposite end of the couch. Harry was not far behind and they sprawled together in front of the fire. The most recent Dumbledore's Army meeting had exhausted them physically and magically.

Hermione shot him a dark look. "Professor Snape -"

"We get it, Hermione, Dumbledore trusts Snape," mumbled an increasingly sleepy Harry beneath his forearm. "Doesn't mean we have to like him."

She huffed in annoyance and adjusted her leg beneath Harry's head so they were both more comfortable. Crookshanks shimmied himself between her other leg and the arm of the couch and began purring powerfully enough to begin shaking the aches from her knees. All of the stairs took a toll at the end of the day, especially during the winter months. It was only the beginning of November and she already was wearing several layers of warm socks.

"Crooks, your paws are cold," she murmured to the tomcat as she dozed, a rare moment of relaxation. The hand that wasn't lazily running through his ginger fur rested on Harry's shoulder.

Crookshanks simply started purring louder.

* * *

Christmas had been hell. Two whole days spent at Hogwarts after Harry and the Weasleys left in the middle of the night. Of all the nights to actually fall asleep in her own bed and not in the common room!

McGonagall and Dumbledore were both nowhere to be found in the morning after she woke to find her friends gone in the middle of the night without warning. In her desperation, nearly jogging through the halls to the Owlery, she narrowly avoided colliding with Professor Snape. For a brief moment, his hands were on her shoulders to steady her, but then she stepped down to the stair below. Their height difference was exaggerated and made her uncomfortable.

She had not been this close in proximity to him since the night he bared his Dark Mark for the entire room to see. Even in the Potions classroom there was a good deal of distance as he sneered over Neville's cauldron and neatly avoided her side of the worktable.

"Miss Granger," he muttered. He brusquely brushed off his sleeves as he took two steps down the Owlery steps so they were on more even ground.

Still a bit breathless from her sprint and the way her stomach had dropped to her toes just seconds before, she barely gasped out a polite, "Good morning, Professor."

"I expect that our nearly disastrous encounter was spurred from your unfathomable concern for the welfare of Misters Potter and Weasley." It was definitely not stated as a question.

Hermione was torn between trying to hold her breath and gasp in lungfuls of air at the same time. It wouldn't do to break this spell of almost...congeniality? Not quite congeniality, but perhaps cordiality.

A single raised eyebrow met her gaze once he'd finished dusting himself off unnecessarily. She started as if called to attention.

"Yes, sir." In for a penny in for a pound. "And the rest of the Weasleys, too, sir. Ginny and the twins are gone as well."

"As I understand it the Weasleys have left for their winter holidays early, you will not be able to reach them by owl."

Hermione's shoulders fell and once again it felt as though all the air left her lungs, but a small pit was forming in the bottom of her stomach.

"May I ask where they've gone, sir?" She hated how dejected her voice sounded.

Another small eyebrow raise. "I am not at liberty to say, though I'm certain you will reconvene once the holidays truly begin." Professor Snape seemed to almost hesitate as he took another few steps down away from his student. "You would be remiss to use these next two days lying in wait of the train departure. I'm certain there are others who would benefit your company."

"Pardon?" Hermione proclaimed. Her eyes were wide as she took in the retreating form of the Potions Master.

In his wake was a single ginger bottlebrush tail-hair floating in the slight breeze of the Owlery windows.


	3. MCMXCV - II

**Disclaimer:** This is all for fun, I do not claim ownership of the characters or anything recognized from the work of J.K. Rowling. I am only borrowing them.

[A/N] As always, thank you for taking the time to visit and review. If you visit tumblr and twitter with the same username, disillusionist9, you are sure to see an abundance of Harry Potter fun and my headcanon for a lot of the characters I write for. It's the best way to get in contact with me for questions.

 **Playlist:** Seabird - Cottonmouth (Jargon) | Imogen Heap - The Walk | The Offspring - A Lot Like Me | Inara George - Infinity

* * *

St. Mungo's had left a bad feeling all over Hermione's body; all she wanted to do was crawl out of her skin. As her parents would be abroad this Christmas as planned over the summer holidays she wouldn't be able to demand one of the adult Order members bring her to the townhouse to visit. It would make no difference if she went alone either. Though what she wanted to do was hug them fiercely after meeting Neville's parents she made do with clutching her tomcat to her breast.

Heedless of the static quality of her Weasley sweater, she scratched behind his ears and ran her hands down his fur in a rhythm that made Crookshanks purr deeply in his chest. The fire of the drawing room was just enough to keep away the chill from the circle of armchairs around the fire. Harry was in some other room talking to Sirius and all the Weasleys were still down in the kitchen around the table, worried over their patriarch.

Not many Order members were present at Headquarters this holiday. When the floorboards creaked around her she merely assumed it was Kreacher wandering throughout the house. For how vehemently he opposed her presence in his Mistress's home he hadn't done anything overly spiteful to her.

Remus had pulled her aside months before to warn the elf may try to bite her. With a scowl she had quickly realized he would not get near enough to try such a thing and why in the world would they need to use such a wretched home for Headquarters anyway? That poor elf needed the company of its own kind after so many years of solitude with nothing but that incorrigible portrait.

A mug of tea appeared in her vision, making her nearly startle Crookshanks from her arms. The hand that proffered it was attached to a very tired looking Remus. The new moon had been three days previous so he should have been feeling better than normal but very few senior Order members had gotten much sleep since Arthur Weasley's attack in the Department of Mysteries.

"Thanks, Remus," Hermione said with a small smile. "Happy Christmas."

"Happy Christmas, Hermione," returned Remus. "Will you be visiting your parents this holiday?"

Hermione glanced at her companion as he sat heavily into an adjacent chair. Was he asking because he wanted to make conversation or would they need to assign protection for her?

"No, unfortunately. They decided over the summer holidays to take the few weeks around Christmas and the New Year off on a ski trip. They hadn't gone on an extended one since before I was born."

"Weren't you invited?" The werewolf's head was rested heavily on the hand not holding a tea cup.

Hermione nodded while sipping her own tea. She attempted not to make a face. It was scaldingly hot, too hot to even taste the tea and the leaves were likely burned.

"I went with them for a few days before Dumbledore sent me an owl letting me know what happened. I left them at the resort after Professor McGonagall collectd me by international Portkey. Frankly she seemed glad to be away from that horrible Umbridge woman but was in a hurry to get back to the Hogwarts."

"Dumbledore contacted you?" For the first time in the conversation he seemed completely engaged, his head even leaving its perch on his hand and leaning closer.

Crookshanks' purring quieted slightly and he turned his snubbed nose towards the smell of the werewolf leaning closer. His tail flicked back and forth against her thigh as Remus stared at her. She adjusted him on her lap, but the tomcat stared resolutely right back at Remus as if he didn't know what to do: pounce or go back to sleep against her chest.

"Not directly, no. He sent me a message using Hedwig so at first I thought it was Harry. She came right to me up there on the mountain before flying away. I didn't read the message until after I'd gone back to my room for the night."

Disappointment was evident in her former professor's posture the way his body resumed its state of barely concealed exhaustion. The two drank their tea in silence, the only sounds in the room the echo of a dusty Wizarding Wireless downstairs playing carols and Crookshanks' purring.

"Sir," began Hermione, working up her courage to ask something that had been bothering her. "Is Sirius doing alright here alone with Buckbeak and Kreacher? He hasn't seemed a little...erratic to you?"

A slight snore interrupted her and she fell into uncomfortable silence, holding her familiar even closer.

* * *

Valentine's Day didn't seem all that festive to Hermione that year. It was one month exactly past the Azkaban breakout and the idea that some of Voldemort's most trusted and loyal supporters were at large frankly depleted all of her holiday spirit. Only the interview with Rita Skeeter had buoyed her mood enough to trudge through the snow back to the castle after the Hogsmeade visit.

"Hermione, wait," said Luna from a few feet behind her. "You've got something stuck on your jacket."

Hermione turned to see Luna holding a sizable bundle of ginger fur that had been left in her hood by Crookshanks. Most likely he had used the fur lined coat to nap.

"Thanks, Luna," Hermione said. Time spent with her in Dumbledore's Army meetings had warmed her to the odd Ravenclaw. "Crooks likes to leave his hair everywhere."

With a little tilt of her head, Luna smiled and shook his head. "No, he doesn't."

Luna skipped away through the falling snow leaving Hermione to puzzle over exactly what she meant.

* * *

" _Depulso_. Now you try. No, not my book, banish the quill, Ronald!"

"I can't concentrate, not until Harry comes back from the dungeons. Why does he go down there alone?"

"I'm sure he's fine, he's with-"

"That's exactly why I'm worried."

"Professor Snape won't hurt Harry."

"...I'm not so sure about that. Harry, mate, you okay?"

Harry was white as a sheet as he plopped down in a chair near Hermione and Ron in the common room.

"Fine. Snape says I've got the basics, I can go on alone from here."

"But aren't you still having those dreams?" Hermione responded quietly.

Harry looked at her briefly and she couldn't help but reach her hand out to touch his shoulder soothingly. Gently, Harry brushed her hand off and stood to go upstairs. Ron glanced at her once and then followed him without a word up to the boy's dormitory.

The stress of the last few days made her react more sensitively than she would normally. Between the DA being discovered, Dumbledore leaving, and Umbridge instated as the Headmistress April was turning out even worse than the Christmas holidays. With a wave of her wand her supplies were neatly packed back into her knapsack and she deftly banished the lot up to her four poster bed.

Ensuring that her prefect's badge was pinned to the outside of her robes, she headed towards the portrait hole. She was careful not to move too swiftly to attract attention to herself.

The hallways were blessedly deserted and quiet. There were no students to send back to bed or even ghosts lingering in alcoves. It wasn't until she passed a corridor with high paned windows that were ultra reflective in the moonlight that she realized she was crying.

With a huff of indignation she hastily wiped at her eyes and cast a charm to reduce the puffiness beneath her eyes. Charms like that came in handy when one needed to show a stiff upper lip for Umbridge or the Inquisitorial Squad.

A brief pressure against her shins alerted her to the presence of Crookshanks winding his way around her legs. When she reached down to pick up her familiar he darted a few feet from her grasp. By the way he stopped and turned to look at her he wanted her to follow him.

The air seemed to get colder around her as she followed her familiar. He never let her get close enough to grab him, always just out of arm's reach. It didn't feel like she was travelling down far enough but soon the walls were covered in a thin layer of slippery mildew like the dungeons near the lake.

"Crooks, where are you going?" Hermione called out in the dark. Her voice reverberated off the walls back to her as a whisper that got quieter and quieter with every echo.

The last torch before the end of the corridor didn't extend far enough into the darkness for her to see the form of Crookshanks but his eyes reflected for a moment before he went a bit further. Folding her arms over her chest, wishing she had worn a jumper beneath her robes instead of just a cotton shirt, she tried to call out to him again. She couldn't recall a single time he came to her when called and he didn't break the streak now.

"Crookshanks!" she hissed again a bit louder.

The last sibilant letter lasted longer in the echo and in her nervous, cold, and stressed mindset it seemed to grow louder instead of quieter until it filled her ears with the hissing of one hundred snakes. Throwing her hands up over her ears she squatted down against the wall, heedless of the cold condensation soaking into the back of her robes.

A hand was on her shoulder and shaking it and was gripping her rather harder than was strictly necessary, but somehow the sharp pain of a fingernail digging into the meat of her arm broke the reverberant sound in her head. With a few deep breaths she opened her eyes and looked up to see who was gripping her so.

Irises that were nearly black scowled at her, a lit wand tip on the side of Professor Snape's face made all the angles of his face stand out in sharp relief.

"What are you doing down here, Miss Granger?" he snapped, bringing her to her feet.

"I...I…," she found she couldn't form the words necessary to explain herself.

She was saved by a loud meow from Crookshanks that stood between the hems of hers and the Professor's robes. Not leaving it to chance, Hermione bent down to grab her familiar before he could run off again. As she straightened back up with arms full of ginger fur she dared to meet Professor Snape's eyes once more.

"Crookshanks, sir. I was looking for him and…"

What started as a confident explanation died in her throat when her companion in the corridor did not change his expression in the slightest. The soft light of a Lumos still lit the side of his face. His eyes seemed rather bloodshot, the way hers looked when she didn't get enough sleep, but the sallowness of his surrounding skin made the crimson stand out even more vividly.

"You would do well not to take cues from Potter. Submerge your Gryffindor brashness on occasion in favor of treading safer waters."

"Yes, sir," she answered automatically.

Professor Snape made a soft humming sound that gave the impression he believed her as far as he could throw a hippogriff.

"Away with you," he sneered as he lowered his wand, throwing the light from the Lumos to light more torches in the dungeon corridor.

Not trusting herself to attempt to speak again lest she lose house points or get a rightfully earned detention for being down in the dungeons without cause past curfew despite her prefect status, Hermione did just that. A pair of yellow orbs watched from over her shoulder at the man the tom had just spent the last few minutes trying to coax out of the very darkness he was still ensconced in.

* * *

To say the rest of the year passed uneventfully would be the biggest lie told since Gilderoy Lockhart tried to sell others' stories as his own. A portable swamp, O.W.L.S., and the Department of Mysteries; no amount of time would be able to erase the long purple gash down her chest that frankly should have ended her life. That didn't seem to stop whomever was leaving her potions vials next to her hospital bed that were marked with simple instructions.

She could swear she'd seen the handwriting before but it off just enough to make the name elusive. Sometimes it looked like Madame Pomfrey's notes on her hospital records when she used a new ointment to treat the curse wound. Usually it just looked like blocky script from the typewriter she had collected from the old townhouse.

Whomever it was was certainly trying to undo the damage the curse had done to her body and was even dropping off tinctures for Ron and the long marks on his arms where the brain had grabbed him. A few of the potions that ended up showing on her nightstand repeatedly were those that made her feel as though she could breathe easier and that her skin wasn't trying to crawl away from her body.

The image that stayed with her for months in her dreams occurred on one of the last nights she spent in the hospital wing just after Crookshanks completed his ritual of bypassing the wards in order to get to her in her bed. Just as his paws hit the mattress her eyes automatically fluttered open and her hand reached out to pet behind his ears. A small intake of breath caught her attention and woke her up fully, her hand grabbing for her wand instinctively.

Cold fingers wrapped aronud her wrist before she could point it at her attacker and she felt the pressure of a silencing charm. Panic began to constrict her breathing before she looked up to see the exhausted face of Professor Snape holding a small tray of vials and creams with the same blocky script she had seen before.

She blinked once. Twice.

Of course it had been him. He was the Potions Master. It still didn't make her any less wary considering the last time she had interacted with him she had been under the heavy arm of Milicent Bulstrode and he had given no indication he intended to assist them.

The cold fingers did not relax off her wrist and her windpipe was gradually feeling smaller and making her breathing shallow.

"Mrrrow!"

The witch and wizard whose eyes were deadlocked on each other startled to look at the tomcat on the bed and impatiently switching his tail back and forth. Under the glowing scrutiny Professor Snape slowly released his grip and Hermione likewise loosened her hand on her wand so it could return to resting next to her pilow.

Quiet clinking of glass filled the silence as the empty vials were replaced swiftly by the same hands that had gripped her not moments before. A final glance not at his student but at her familiar and the Potions Master swept from the room.

No hairs floated in his wake upon exit. A much more significant ball of fluff followed him out the door, leaving Hermione to ponder once again what his behavior signified while lying awake in her hospital bed.


End file.
